Biography
I was fortunate enough to have guitars around me all my life. My father was a player so I was never too far away from a guitar growing up. So when I got the bug to play, I didn’t have to go any further than my family’s basement to find an instrument.
When I was 10 or 11 years old, I started listening to bands like Motley Crue, Ratt, and Van Halen. I loved the energy of the music and was fascinated by the look and attitude of whole metal genre. It wasn’t that I was rebellious and this music spoke me in that way, it was more like a good movie with strange, interesting characters and a certain mystique that drew me in.
More than anything, I really identified with the guitar player. Players like Warren DeMartini and Eddie Van Halen just seemed beyond cool to me. It wasn’t long before I grabbed my father’s guitar, determined to be the next Warren or Eddie.
I can equate my first experience playing guitar to playing a skateboarding video game. You play long enough in the fantasy world where the skateboard magically sticks to your feet no matter what, and it’s a complete letdown the moment you try a trick on an actual skateboard and it doesn’t work out. I figured just having a cool guitar was enough, but when I took my first lesson and realized it was actually very difficult to play, I gave up.
After that, I got a Casio MT-100 keyboard for Christmas. I really enjoyed that keyboard, and to this day I still enjoy playing keys or piano from time to time. Then I got a pair of drumsticks and beat the crap out of everything in the house for several months. That Christmas I bugged my parents for a drumset. I got a computer instead.
Eventually I got drawn back to the guitar, only this time I decided I’d teach myself the music I wanted to play instead of the campfire and Christmas songs my school’s guitar classes were teaching. So my Dad taught me three chords and bought me Van Halen‘s Live Without a Net concert video. I spent the next year about two feet from the TV screen.
Ed was my first real guitar hero. Watching him play really inspired me. I wanted to play fast, articulate, with great technique, but still be very musical. Not too long after diving head first back into the guitar, I picked up some new heroes like Satriani, Vai, Richie Kotzen, and Paul Gilbert. All the while, just being a player and having a cool guitar got me a lot of attention from the other kids at school, so the ego boost helped push me to get better and more involved with my playing.
During my junior high school years, I got talked into trying out for choir class by a good friend of mine. I thought it was fun, but more important, it helped to lay a foundation for more formal experience with music theory. This gave my playing more direction and helped immensely with composition. I continued to take music related classes all the way up to high school graduation.
At the same time I was rounding out my musical experience with formal education, I also started getting involved in garage bands. During high school, I played in three different bands, playing house parties or just jamming after school. I really enjoyed that dynamic. Playing live in front of a crowd of enthusiastic friends was way too fun.
Shortly before graduating high school, I found myself in a local Colorado band called Trip Romeo. This was my first “real” band. We recorded demos, had an agent, a press kit, and played clubs all over Colorado. This was a blast for me, with the only downside being that I was too young to get into some of the clubs we were booked in. I remember one night actually making a little hiding spot for myself backstage behind a bunch of guitar cabinets. But I still enjoyed it. Plus, I got to brag about it in school the next day.
That band lasted about a year. When our front man got an opportunity to play for a more established band, that was the end of Trip Romeo. Fortunately, the timing worked out favorably for me as another local, but very popular band, Foolish Pride (featuring Corey Brown), was looking for a guitar player. I got the job, and was soon back in clubs. One of my first shows with Foolish Pride was opening for Dream Theater during their Images and Words supporting tour. Up to this point, I had never listened to Dream Theater, so in preparation for the show, I bought Images and Words. Now I had heard Rush and Fates Warning before and I had an appreciation from progressive rock, but Dream Theater blew me away. The day of the show came, we played pool with the guys in Dream Theater before the show, and they were super cool to us. Then they ripped through an amazing set, with me standing right in front of John Petrucci the whole time.
After that, we decided it was time for a new direction for the band. We were all about prog. Unfortunately, the other guitar player and the bass player weren’t into the band anymore, and they split shortly after that show. So we started auditioning players and eventually picked up a bass player I had worked with in garage band days, and the guitar player that had been in Foolish Pride previously.
Since we had a new lineup and a new musical direction, we decided it was time for a new name. We eventually decided on Psyco Drama and soon after were writing new material. About a month after we finalized the lineup, we were in the recording studio working on a demo. We called that demo “The Illusion”, and circulated it to various labels, radio stations, magazines, and sold it at shows. Not too long after, we were invited to play at Concrete Marketing’s Foundations Forum in Anaheim, CA. We played on the same stage as bands like Kiss and Scorpions. I remember playing our set and having Rob Halford in the crowd, standing right in front of me. I wasn’t nervous or anything.
Foundations Forum gave us the opportunity to attend clinics with record execs, promoters, and management, as well as rub elbows with the stars and get more copies of our demo distributed. After the show, the demo got written up in an underground metal magazine called Sentinel Steel. I had never heard of it, but the write up got us enough attention that a few weeks after it was released, we had a recording contract sitting in front of us.
We signed with Massacre Records based out of Germany in 1995 and immediately got back in the studio to record more material to turn “The Illusion” into our first full length CD. Later, we signed to Taichiku Records in Japan and DCA Recordings in the U.S.
“The Illusion” immediately picked up momentum and Psyco Drama was instantly popular in the international prog metal scene. 
Several interviews, concerts, a TV appearance here and there, and countless shows later, it was time to record the follow up to The Illusion. Having made headway in Europe and Asia, we really wanted more market share in our own country. So we made the fateful decision to change our style to appeal to an audience that was neck deep in grunge at the time. We recorded ‘Bent’ in a studio in Los Angeles, but without a Los Angeles studio recording budget. The result was a half hearted effort with a very rough overall sound quality.
‘Bent’ was released in 1997. Unfortunately, the musical direction had changed enough to alienate our fans, but was distinctly different enough from what was popular in the 
U.S., that basically nobody liked it. Least of all, me.
Immediately after Bent was released, I left Psyco Drama. There had already been tension between myself and some of the other members, and the disappointment of Bent was the last straw.
During the years I spent in Psyco Drama, I began experimenting with multitrack sequencing and recording. I recorded dozens of songs using a digital sequencer and starting getting a feel for orchestration. After leaving Psyco Drama, I began to piece together a makeshift recording studio in my home. I was perfectly content writing and recording songs at home.
About a year after I left Psyco Drama, I heard that the band was breaking up. In one day, I received two phone calls from two different members asking if I’d be interested in starting another project. I was reluctant to jump back into a band, but I missed playing live. In addition, Corey and I had become good friends during the Psyco years, and I missed working with such a good guy and amazing singer. So I seized upon the chance to play in a band with him again.
Working with some of the members of the last iteration of Psyco Drama, we formed Section 16. Our goal was to try and work with some of the momentum created with Psyco Drama, but with a heavier sound, and a more fun oriented attitude. We were mildly successful with both goals. We spent a couple of years trying to establish ourselves and develop a fan base, but our local scene was growing dismal, and creating a buzz was very difficult. We decided to work on a CD and exploit the growing internet community to see if we could step outside of our glass dome and begin to reach an international audience again.
I volunteered to engineer the recording myself so that we might be able to have more control over the final product, and I knew it would be a great learning experience for myself. We had recorded a few songs for demos previously, and were happy enough with some of those recording that we kept a few. We then started working on more material to complete our CD. The experience was very educational, but slow going, and often times, very frustrating. After a year, we had a product that we were happy with so we decided to move into production. The title, ‘Identity Crisis’, was fitting as the musical styling ranged from fast paced adrenalin rushes, to more blues-rock, to hard, heavy, detuned testosterone metal. We were very proud of the outcome, and I was stoked that I was able to record a good portion of the music myself on my own equipment. But while most of the band was excited to push forward and make headway with the disc, I started feeling crushed under the weight of so many different musical opinions, constantly fruitless rehearsals, lackluster shows, and lingering personality conflicts left over from earlier days. A year of recording certainly didn’t help, either. Immediately after the release of Identity Crisis, I was once again packing up my gear and headed for home.
I continued working on material at home, and after putting together a couple of decent songs, I burned them to a disc and sent them over to Corey. Some of the material I was writing was very reminiscent of early Psyco Drama music and Corey was super enthusiastic about it, ultimately suggesting that I start writing in some sections for him to sing over. Of course I agreed (if the greatest singer in the world wants to sing over your songs, you let him sing over your songs). He also suggested that maybe it was time for me to work on my own CD, with him lending his voice to some of the songs. I thought the idea sounded reasonable, so I began writing in earnest. The more I worked on it, the more I got excited as I realized that I could do whatever I wanted musically. That being the case, I wrote songs styled in many of the genres I enjoyed listening to including prog metal, guitar instrumental, and even electronica/trance. The result is Singularity.
Influences:
My earliest musical influences were what is now known as hair metal bands. I was into Motley Crue, Ratt, Van Halen, and Twisted Sister. In addition, my older siblings turned me onto more ‘classic’ rock bands like Journey and Rush.After getting into guitar, I got more into artists like Yngwie Malmsteen, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, Richie Kotzen, Racer X, Extreme, Cacophony, and Vinnie Moore.
Of course, Eddie Van Halen kicked it all off for me, and continues to be one of my biggest idols. Lately however, Steve Vai is my go-to guy for overall inspiration, and Paul Gilbert for working on speed and dexterity. In any case, their sheer mastery of the instrument inspires me to work hard to get better every time I pick up a guitar.
Once I got into prog bands like Dream Theater, Queensryche, and Fates Warning, I started to develop an appreciation for orchestral music like classical and new age. Artists like Yanni, Enya, Enigma, and Andres Segovia began working their way into my musical vocabulary.
The 90’s were a bad time for me musically. I hated grunge. It was bland and depressing. A couple of saving graces were Dream Theater, Rob Zombie, and Pantera, but overall I’m so glad the 90s are over.
Lately, I’ve really gotten into electronica. I imagine the reasons are that I really missed high energy music during the grunge era, and that that style of music is very multidimensional and colorful. Electronica artist I’m into include The Crystal Method, The Chemical Brothers, Paul Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyk, Armin Van Buuren, Tiesto, and iiO among others.
Fortunately, there is a new crop of talented metal bands that I’m really getting into like Evanescence, Symphony X, and Dragonforce.
Gear:
My equipment is actually pretty basic. For recording guitar, I go into a Line 6 POD, to a Boss wah pedal, to a 16 band ART EQ, to a Behringer mixer board, to and M-Audio soundcard, into either Cakewalk or Sonar.
Bass is the same setup without the POD.
Drums and synths are triggered off of an old Roland JW-50, into a JV-1010 module, into the board and soundcard, and manipulated via MIDI in Cakewalk/Sonar.Vocals for Singularity were captured with a Shure SM-57, (I’ve since changed that to a MXL V69 Mogami edition) and sent through a Presonus tube preamp and a Nady CL5000 compressor.
Studio monitoring is handled with a pair of Behringer Truth B2031As and a Polk Audio subwoofer, as well as a Behringer headphone amp.
Guitars:
Jackson Dinky maple fretboard with an original Floyd Rose and Seymour Duncan pickups
Jackson DX10 Rhoads with an original Floyd Rose and Seymour Duncan pickups
Fender American Deluxe Strat HSS with a lefty neck and Super-Vee tremolo
Fender Classic Series 70s Start with Fender Samarium Cobalt noiseless pickups
Fender 12 string acoustic|
Ibanez JEM7V
Ibanez RG7620 7 string
Ibanez RG520Q with Dimarzio Evolution pickups
Ibanez RG1250 12 string electric
Ibanez Artwood acoustic
Ibanez acoustic
Ibanez nylon string classical
Washburn Nuno Bettencourt N4ESA
Washburn MG70
Kramer 1984 (striped of course)
Carvin V220
Norma hollowbody
Tobias 5 string bass
Other Interests:
Cycling - Observed trials (biketrial), mountain biking, road cycling
Weight training
Movies - Horror, Science Fiction, Godzilla, Superhero, early Spielberg
TV - Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, early Smallville, Mystery Science Theater 3000, South Park, Family Guy, Adult Swim, Ninja Warrior (Sasuke), Mythbusters
Web - Homestar Runner, Youtube (guitar virtuosos, music videos, comedy, anything StSanders does)
Science
Physics
Travel
Beer
Martinis|
Sushi
Sleeping in
Ignoring trends
Staying out of political conversations
Staying away from stupid people
Watching celebrities self-destruct
Forgetting people’s names
